According to a police report filed by the airport operator, two outsourced forklift operators moved the two pallets out of the cargo warehouse on September 21, an act captured on CCTV, while a third employee, a checker, released the goods in the electronic system so they could pass the airport's controls. The cards were then loaded onto a truck and have not been seen since. Reporting on the customs timeline differs: Tom's Hardware, citing GMC, says the shipment arrived in Brazil on September 20 and was registered with customs on September 24, while Club386 places the customs registration on September 20.

The trail reappeared this week when one Zotac RTX 5090 Solid OC was listed on the Brazilian marketplace OLX for R$32,000, about $6,000. Brazil's Jornal da Band spotted the listing and matched the visible serial number to the missing cargo. The listing has since been taken down, and it is not clear who posted it or whether that person was involved in the theft.

Beyond the criminal investigation, the episode is a warning to bargain hunters: an unsuspecting buyer of stolen goods could face problems later, for example if they seek a warranty repair from Zotac and the card's history comes to light. The cards are tempting targets because AI demand has pushed RTX 5090 prices to extraordinary levels, with some listings going for well past $8,000.

The scarcity backdrop is itself in flux. In early October 2026, TechPowerUp reported, citing leakers, that Nvidia had stopped allocating GB202 silicon, the chip inside the RTX 5090, to the GeForce line in favour of pricier workstation cards, though the company had not confirmed this at the time of writing.